


the frame called us

by pulses



Category: CIX (Band)
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Canon Compliant, M/M, Seemingly Unrequited Pining, When You Liked Him In Middle School But He Doesn't Remember You: The Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-16 00:15:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29816568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pulses/pseuds/pulses
Summary: It's not that Yongheewantsto avoid Jinyoung. Honestly. But trying to reconcile his image of the person Jinyoung once was with who he's become isn't an easy task, and it beats the shape of their second first impression into something strange and amorphous, the lines of it inscrutable.Or: Yonghee remembers Jinyoung. Jinyoung doesn't remember Yonghee. It takes time, but they get there eventually.
Relationships: Bae Jinyoung/Kim Yonghee, Brief Kim Yonghee/Lee Byounggon | BX
Comments: 29
Kudos: 46





	the frame called us

**Author's Note:**

> me when it's 2021 and i have not actually returned with a better image: idk what this is but please enjoy <3
> 
>  **quick note:** there are some ambiguous relationships / ambiguous references to relationships in this fic, but yongbae are the main pairing (and endgame). hopefully the tagging is clear enough. also this is canon compliant except for The Shit I Made Up, as per usual ^^ a big thank you to everyone who has supported me in becoming a "fix" and writing insane yongbae fic (aka The Predebut Angst To Postdebut Romance Pipeline) t___t love you dearly!

When Yonghee was first shoved into a C9 practice room and told to dance, his mind couldn't wrap itself around all the moving parts of idol choreography. Instead he went through the motions piece-by-piece: arms and legs separately, expressions last. Threading together isolated 8-counts, hoping that if he went at it one layer at a time it would all fold together eventually. 

Then he met Yoon Hyunsuk.

"Hey. Um," Hyunsuk said, doing an admittedly terrible job of holding back his giggles. He was eighteen and willing to say anything. "What are you doing?" 

"I'm—the teacher told me to practice on my own," Yonghee tried. He felt supremely out of place in this little corner he'd staked out for himself, sneakers barely worn in, their rubber soles not accustomed to this kind of work. He could feel it: how the amateur edge of his every dance move was gutted and exposed toward sun.

Hyunsuk shifted on two feet and giggled again, his eyes crinkling with the motion. "Cute," he said.

 _Cute?_ Yonghee thought in disbelief. Hyunsuk's tone wasn't unkind, but something about it rang flat and humiliating, enough to have Yonghee's face bursting into flames.

Being outdone by a kid with ten centimeters on you was bad enough; being told you look cute doing a hip thrust was just the final nail in the coffin. 

Yonghee groaned and tried to regain some control of the situation. "I just don't know how to, uh—this part." He went to demonstrate, twisting his arms about in a clumsy dak-dak-dak motion. "I don't really know, I just thought..." He trailed off lamely.

"Sorry," Hyunsuk said, sheepish. He put an elbow out and nudged him goodnaturedly. "I didn't mean to embarrass you or anything. Do you want me to show you the moves?"

This time Yonghee just sighed, resigned. "Actually, yeah. That would be great. Thanks."

And that was that.

Back then, Yonghee had remembered thinking: I gave up acting for _this?_ It was felt with the exact same disbelief as when he'd given up school for acting, forever victim to the cyclical motion of sacrifice.

But Hyunsuk was just the beginning. The first notch in the clumsy, jagged timeline of whatever this story is: Kim Yonghee becoming his own person. Kim Yonghee, nineteen, trying to make something of his own desires.

Kim Yonghee, soft where it hurt.

The move-in day for their new dorm is an awkward affair. Everyone knows where the money for the apartment building comes from—whose pockets pay for these high-rise window panels with their highway view, the sprawling concrete fashioned around a gleaming stretch of Han River.

No one has the heart to say it.

The five of them, here, are mostly strangers. That's how it really starts. They draw lots for roommates, and Yonghee shuffles off with Byounggon and Hyunsuk into the main bedroom, and he tries not to think of the boy with a shock of black hair on the other side of the wall, a face he hasn't really _seen_ in years.

The first time he meets Bae Jinyoung again, Yonghee doesn't know what to make of it.

The thing is, no one ever gave him a guidebook on navigating a professional relationship with someone you went to school with, but who doesn't remember you. Like, _I used to watch you make a fool of yourself during English class every week, and then you joined one of the largest idol groups in the world, and now you're here and you don't even know who I am?_

It isn't exactly a common occurrence.

So it's not that Yonghee _wants_ to avoid Jinyoung. Honestly. But trying to reconcile his image of the person Jinyoung once was with who he's become isn't an easy task, and it beats the shape of their first impression (or second, or third—however you look at it) into something strange and amorphous, the lines of it inscrutable.

Yonghee settles into most of his friendships at the dorm easily enough: Hyunsuk, his only real friend before this group was cobbled together, is loud enough that they all can't help but like him. Seunghun is similarly high-energy, the kind of shameless extrovert that Yonghee responds well to. Then there's Byounggon: Byounggon with his low voice and strong eyes. Byounggon who came off intimidating at first, but Yonghee soon realizes is just as soft as Yonghee is, gentle and harmless to the bone. He also takes it upon him—maybe as the eldest—to cook most of their after-schedule meals.

"I'll wash the dishes," Yonghee finds himself offering when they finish. Every time, Byounggon smiles at him and helps him gather up the bowls, nudges his hip with his own, a smile to his face as he thanks him and calls Yonghee dependable.

There's something therapeutic about it. Letting the soap soak through, focusing on the in-and-out motion of the sponge, its scrubbing rhythmic and mindless. No one interrupts him here. For ten to twenty minutes a day, Yonghee can block out the entire world and—

"Do you want me to help?" a voice cuts through.

Yonghee startles. When he turns back, he sees Jinyoung standing behind him with his hands in his sweatpant pockets, head cocked to the side in question.

"Um," he says. "It's okay. I can do it myself."

"You sure?" Jinyoung asks. There's something almost engineered about his stance. As if he'd purposefully chosen to come here, stand at that exact spot, hold his arms out like that. Timed right when to interrupt him.

Yonghee can't help the frown that forms on his face. "Yeah." He finishes toweling off another spotless porcelain bowl and holds it up in front of him. "I'm almost done."

"Okay," Jinyoung concedes, shrugging. "I mean—yeah, okay." 

They stare at each other for what starts off as a moment, a pregnant pause, until it stretches way too long for either of them to find a way to break off. Then Jinyoung turns heel and walks back to his room, and Yonghee is left there, bowl in hand, wondering what the hell just happened.

Again, it's not that Yonghee wants to avoid Jinyoung. They'll be debuting soon enough, and then he'll have no choice. 

He knows that.

But it's like whenever Jinyoung asks him something, Yonghee's tongue suddenly loses the ability to produce words, twisting into knots on the spot. Or whenever Jinyoung asks, Yonghee can't help but default to, _it's fine_ , or, _you go first._ Or, _I'll pass, thanks,_ and, _oh, sorry, I'm supposed to be helping Byounggon-hyung with something._

He isn't proud of it.

Again: Yonghee, soft where it hurts.

Practice today is rough. 

Even though he isn't quite as green anymore, new choreography can still throw him for a loop. The uneasiness always makes him hyperaware of the gap between him and the others: the ones who were born to perform, like Seunghun and his tenfold experience, or the lifetime of practice Jinyoung had tucked away into his years with Wanna One.

It's late; they ran through the acceptable timeframe for dinner about two hours ago. After Yonghee fumbles through his second mistake in one 8-count, throwing himself off-beat, their dance instructor just exhales and reaches a hand out to shut off the music mid-song. 

Somehow, it feels worse like that—not even being allowed to see his failures through.

"We're done for today," she says. 

Yonghee feels flushed with something ugly, the weight of it twisting in the pit of his stomach, but he says nothing. Beside him, Hyunsuk heaves himself up and pats Yonghee on the shoulder, then heads to grab his things. Yonghee stands there, rooted, until the instructor makes her way toward him.

"It's okay, Yonghee-yah," he vaguely hears her whisper. "Come in early tomorrow. I'll help you go over it."

Everyone starts filing out then. Yonghee hears Seunghun ask Hyunsuk whether he has time for the convenience store before they head back to the dorm, and how they try to rope Byounggon in at the same time, the way he says _I'll think about it_ to the sound of their comically audible groans. 

Yonghee shakes himself. He's just about to follow suit, pull on his jacket and head into the cool nothingness outside, when he hears Jinyoung's voice sound behind him.

"Are you already done?"

Yonghee pivots on the spot and catches the hard glint of Jinyoung's eye. He makes the mistake of trailing down, notices the sweat glistening around his collarbone, and does his utmost best to wrench his eyes away.

"It's past midnight," he tries. He sees his reflection stare back in the mirror. Can see how he looks ragged and weathered, eyebags sunken in. "I'll come in early tomorrow."

"But you don't even have the second verse down."

Yonghee bites his lip. Shrugs. Goes: "So?"

The words Jinyoung says next—no matter how much time has passed, no matter how much distance Yonghee puts between himself and this night, the horrible taste of it burned onto his tongue, pressed into his skin—will never leave him.

Later on, he'll be able to at least look back and decide that Jinyoung hadn't meant it with malice. Jinyoung just has a discerning eye, and that sort of judgment can manifest like this, something targeted and glacial to the touch. 

He isn't cruel. Yonghee knows that much.

But, still. Even a thing hardened by knowledge, by the most unfiltered of the truths—a critique plain and sincere and genuine in intention—isn't any easier to swallow down.

"If you keep going this way," Jinyoung starts, like a premonition, "do you really think you can be an idol?"

Yonghee's mouth goes slack. " _What?_ "

"I mean, you can't keep giving up like this. We're debuting in a couple of months. Why do you think you can just—keep putting things off, expecting them to work out?" It's unspoken. That is, the, _I would never let me hold us back. Not the way you're doing right now._

Later on, Yonghee might be able to see a bit more clearly. He'll be able to understand. But here, now, he expects Jinyoung to show remorse. His mind can't grasp how Jinyoung just barrels on, as if the weight of what he's saying isn't even registering in his mind.

"Um," Yonghee replies, tired and helpless and shell-shocked. He tugs at his sleeves and feels himself slowly back away. He's exhausted, and he knows that nothing he says can vindicate him. "I won't mess up like that again, I promise. Just—I'll be back tomorrow. Early."

 _I don't even know you,_ he wants to scream. But it's a lie in more ways than one. 

After all, Jinyoung is the one who doesn't remember him.

Jinyoung just sighs and makes his way toward the aux, turning his back to him. Clearly Yonghee isn't worth the fight.

"Leave the lights on," Jinyoung says in lieu of argument. "I'm going to keep practicing."

Yonghee really can't do anything but comply with that. So he does what Jinyoung says and leaves him there, broad shoulders and lithe back awash in fluorescent glare. The song's opening notes are just winding their way around Yonghee as he trudges out, past the practice room door and out the building and then along the sidewalk home, his hands fisted into his pocket. 

When he gets back, he boils himself a packet of Neoguri ramen in the kitchen. His hand taps nervously against the counter the whole time.

Then he heads to his room, buries his face into his pillow, and tries not to scream.

The truth is: the group wasn't always meant to be like this. For months Jinyoung had been herded around contract discussions and made the subject of fraught shareholder meetings. They'd asked him what he prefered, whether he still wanted to stand alone—said they only had so much to offer, but would help him in any way they could. 

There are always limitations. Things you can't just will into existence, things you have to actively fight for. The paths that converged into this seedling of a group, something barely sprouting through the glossy hardwood panels of a C9 practice room, tentatively winding itself into shape—none of them had been easy ones to take.

Yonghee doesn't know what he would be doing now if any of their steps had faltered. He tries to draw those lines through his head, but it always twists into something more fearful, a fatalism only afforded outside the comfort of idolhood. Like rejections from SKY. Doing poorly in his exams, poorly to the point of total failure. Or managing to become an actor but being relegated to unsuccessful webdramas, haunted by the feeling of delaying his own life, his mom calling to update him on all the ways his cousin has outpaced him.

Yonghee still remembers the day Jinyoung's Produce 101 teasers dropped.

The news of Jinyoung— _Bae Jinyoung_ of Class 3-4—appearing on Produce 101 had rippled through their Daekyung Middle School graduating class like a shockwave. Various school group chats, long since inactive, blew up overnight. _ㅋㅋㅋㅋ crazy_ , his friends texted. _you think he'll make it???_

For a school as unexciting as theirs, it had been a big deal. By then Yonghee was a second year in high school and didn't have time to be watching idol television, but that season stood out—how Jinyoung, still eighteen, had been the talk of town. Yonghee remembers pulling up a clip or two. Even though Jinyoung wasn't quite remarkable yet, it hadn't been a surprise to Yonghee that someone like him could end up on stage. 

Mundanity isn't the worst fate; Yonghee knows that. He doesn't believe himself destined for the life he has now, doesn't think himself entitled to idolhood. No one truly is.

But the idea that this is all futile—he's never quite been able to shake it off. More than anything, Yonghee wants to believe that he can be a person whose worth, whose effort, whose skill isn't doubted. He wants others to believe it, too.

He wishes it weren't so hard to live respectably.

The day after, Jinyoung somehow makes his way out of bed by 8am. Yonghee is in the middle of pouring out a bowl of cereal when Jinyoung wanders into the kitchen and blinks at him. Jinyoung's hair is a veritable nest and his eyes look a little darker than usual, but otherwise he moves like he hasn't just slept three hours. Yonghee has to admire the resilience.

"Did your practice go well?" Yonghee blurts out, even though he knows he shouldn't. Immediately, he winces at how stilted the words sound.

For a moment Jinyoung says nothing, making his way past Yonghee and forcing the fridge door open. He purveys the contents of their understocked fridge with what seems to be a single cursory glance before stepping back and letting the door shut with a click.

Then he sighs and goes, "Yeah, it did. Did you—did you sleep okay?" 

The tone of this voice. That careful lilt. It sounds, almost, like Jinyoung is _trying_. 

Yonghee doesn't know what to make of that. So instead he just shrugs, then nods, then hums in confirmation. He pours his milk in, letting it splash over the side of his bowl without elegance, and takes a huge bite of cereal. If anything—just so he can have an excuse to stop talking.

Management forces them to start exercising a few months before debut.

"Don't overdo it," one of their manager hyungs warns jokingly. "We don't want the stylists grumbling if you break through any expensive shirts." 

_Haha!_ they all go, as if this is even remotely a possibility. Looking at the state of his and Byounggon's biceps, Yonghee doesn't think they'll be facing issues any time soon.

Exercising, Yonghee comes to realize, is fine. What's less fine is that they don't have that much time to be doing it—busy with Hello CIX filming, album preparations, eternal dance practices—so they usually carve out space in their schedules to send members off two at a time. Like a double kill of having to do a million squats and trying to befriend someone through the one activity least suited for intimate bonding.

"Do you want me to spot you?" Jinyoung is asking, his hands stilled around the weight Yonghee just started grabbing. Yonghee eyes him from his spot on the bench.

"I'm fine," he tells him.

There's no one else around. It's not like Yonghee has another choice. And, of course—judging from the way his brows furrow—Jinyoung knows it too.

"Why are you always so difficult," he challenges. "Just let me spot you. I don't want you to get hurt."

 _How noble of you,_ Yonghee thinks bitterly. But he also really hates to be called difficult, and he hates how Jinyoung can see through him so plainly.

"Fine," he concedes. 

Jinyoung nods and moves closer to him. If Yonghee looked to his side he'd see the long expanse of Jinyoung's arms, much more defined than Yonghee's, the muscle taut and ready. 

Yonghee has never met anyone like Jinyoung before. Someone so aware of how they looked without trying to continuously draw attention to it, the kind of effortless sculpting he could never understand. When Yonghee looks up, he sees Jinyoung's soft, dark brows come into focus, his hair that hangs low, the strands running off the nape of his neck. Yonghee can see the pink of Jinyoung's tinted lip balm, the color full and sweet, like the cool kiss of a watermelon popsicle. 

Yonghee closes his eyes with a sigh, willing himself to focus. Spot or not, dropping a bench press on his chest because he was busy staring at Jinyoung's _eyelashes_ is possibly the most embarrassing way to go he can think of.

Jinyoung helps him through his routine, presence wordless and gentle. He hovers patiently as Yonghee's chest heaves through each rep, and afterward he extricates himself with a simple, "Good job." Yonghee watches Jinyoung step away and make his way back to his own station.

Yonghee thinks that that's that, something akin to relief washing over him. He doesn't want to be made witness to Jinyoung's inconsistencies any longer, hopes that they can forget about the way Jinyoung had been watching him. Of course Jinyoung's focus was entirely on him—that's how this stupid thing works. Yonghee wants them to go back to the dorm and split at the fork in the road, the diverging paths leading to their rooms. Nothing here is out of the ordinary, no matter what Yonghee's traitorous mind suggests.

But then:

"Yonghee-yah," Jinyoung begins as he towels the sweat off his neck. "Do you want to grab dinner with me? There's a new gukbap place open down the street."

"Uh," Yonghee buffers. 

Over the past month or so, Yonghee has learned that there are only so many excuses he can throw out. Jinyoung _is_ his bandmate, after all, and they should be trying to get along. Even when Yonghee is freaking out and has no idea what Jinyoung wants with him.

"Come on," Jinyoung insists. "It'll be really quick. Everyone else already ate at the dorm."

Yonghee doesn't know why it's become easier to bend to Jinyoung's will like this. But in the end he just sighs and says, _Yeah, okay,_ and the way Jinyoung's eyes crinkle in response makes an inexplicable emotion swell up in him, something loud and clamoring.

Yonghee stamps it down and follows after him, mind reeling.

Later, over a bowl of steaming soup, one arm hanging limply off the side of the table, eyes piercing into his, no preamble:

"You did well in practice today."

And then—once again, later—a flurry of movement rushing past him, a hand waving around loosely, Jinyoung standing fixed and firm at the checkout counter:

"Don't worry," he keeps repeating. He turns back to smile at Yonghee. "I'll pay."

Yonghee doesn't know what to make of any of that.

When he gets back and finally falls into bed, his whole body is sore, and he knows it'll only feel worse the next morning. In a way, he supposes, it isn't too far from how this thing with Jinyoung makes him feel. That delayed ache of pushing yourself too far; trying to make something tenuous like a friendship form, even when Yonghee knows it'll only hurt him later.

"He's just—so frustrating," Yonghee groans. 

Hyunsuk looks up from the webtoon he'd been scrolling through on his phone and cocks his head. "Who? You mean Jinyoung-hyung?"

 _Who else?_ Yonghee almost says, but he holds it back. Hyunsuk listens to him way too much for someone who has never had trouble getting along with another person, and Yonghee won't try to push the limits of his patience any further.

"Yeah. I just don't—I don't _get_ him. One moment he's trashing on me, and the next he wants to help me work out and is treating me out to dinner and encouraging me and—? Can't he just apologize to me like a normal person? Does he hate me or not?"

Hyunsuk makes a sympathetic noise, considering. "I think he was just trying to help you out earlier," he tries. "I don't know. I mean, he can come off too strong sometimes, but hyung is really nice if you just give him a chance. He's just trying to keep the group together, right?"

Well, Yonghee can see why Hyunsuk would say that. The other day he'd walked into the kitchen to see Jinyoung tackling Hyunsuk against the counter and cooing at how cute he was, Hyunsuk squealing and spouting nonsense back at him. Yonghee just seems to be given Jinyoung's austere side—not privy to all the bouts of high tension the other members have been able to activate in him.

Later on, he might be able to realize that that was actually just his fault. But Yonghee—for all his love of reason and fixed solutions, of logic that follows sequentially—is still a person prone to irrationality.

Yonghee feels the mattress dip. When he looks up, he notices that Hyunsuk has made his way over. Hyunsuk tucks his legs beneath him and steadies himself with two hands splayed against the covers, then looks up at Yonghee with curious eyes. 

"But, hyung," he says. "Were you two really not friends in middle school?"

 _Well._ That's where this conversation is heading.

Yonghee has to remind Hyunsuk that Jinyoung is the one who couldn't even remember him. He's only somewhat petulant as he says it.

"But you remember him, right? What was hyung like back then?"

"I—I don't know," Yonghee says. "I mean, people liked him. He didn't cause a lot of trouble."

Hyunsuk nods as if none of this particularly surprises him. "Did _you_ like him, though?"

Yonghee splutters. "No. I mean—I—I don't know. I guess? He was fine. I don't remember that much, either."

That's the first lie. Days later, Yonghee will still be able to recall how flushed he'd felt sounding it all out, terrified Hyunsuk would see right through him. See how his skin positively crawled with the truth of it.

The thing is.

The thing is, Yonghee keeps a running list in his head of things he remembers about Jinyoung from middle school. He has a rotating collection of little bits and pieces: like his desk number and how he'd been surprisingly good at math, and how his face had been even smaller back then, almost impossibly so. One week he came to school with an atrocious perm that still managed to seem charming on him, and Yonghee remembers that time Jinyoung had stood in front of the music classroom with his back held straight and shoulders loosened, stance unconcerned, serenading them all with an overdone Christmas carol.

These memories have escaped Jinyoung by now. Only Yonghee manages to toy at his consciousness like a fraying piece of fabric and discover trivial recollections woven out of sight, mentally peeling away each layer with abandon.

In reality, there is only so much threading them together. The Bae Jinyoung they know today has had countless iterations. First there was the Bae Jinyoung of Daekyung Middle School, a regular student with stupid haircuts, the boy whose friends hadn't been Yonghee's friends. Then the Bae Jinyoung of Produce 101, someone still impossibly malleable, a boy who hid behind his hat and stood on stage with shaky legs, each pixel of his baby-soft face meticulously plastered across subway stations and fan galleries. Then the Bae Jinyoung of Wanna One, and the Bae Jinyoung of C9 Entertainment, the Bae Jinyoung of C9BOYZ, _their_ Bae Jinyoung—their golden piece, the backbone of something still barely traced into the sand.

So many different faces. This whole time, none of them had felt attainable to him.

As their debut day approaches, Yonghee feels his conviction and frustration grow in tandem. A part of him still wants to resent Jinyoung for what he'd told him, back then in the practice room, a tongue sharpened by midnight exhaustion. But another part of him—the part forced into playing catch-up all these few months, the part that has danced itself into the ground—can't help but find some truth in it. 

He can only delay the inevitable for so long. The hours in the practice room start to lengthen for his own sake, his own peace of mind. The early-morning check-ins, the late-night dance reviews: by May, they've blended into one hazy stupor.

"Byounggon-hyung told me you were still down here," a voice says.

When he snaps his head up, Yonghee sees Jinyoung by the foot of the entrance, glass-panel door held ajar. He looks just-showered, hair damp and sticking down in distinct wet strands, as if he barely had time to towel off before rushing out here.

It's ridiculously late. Late to the point where Yonghee questions his own productivity.

"I can't get the timing on this move right," Yonghee says, shrugging. "It's too fast, and I keep—I always miss this part, and then I have to rush the ending to compensate." 

"I'll show you," Jinyoung promises. He moves toward him.

Yonghee lets him. 

Of course he does; he isn't above Jinyoung's help anymore, not when his feedback is always actionable, his directions clear and discernible. Jinyoung is a good teacher. Patient to the core, even when Yonghee's open frustrations don't warrant it.

Later, Jinyoung plops down beside him, in front of the stretch of open wall, and takes a long swig from his water bottle. He looks deep in thought.

"You know," he offers. "I was wrong before."

"What?"

"You can't always force yourself through everything. Sometimes you can. But, sometimes… rest is actually more important."

Yonghee blinks at him. "But you always—"

"I don't always make good choices," Jinyoung interjects. "Just because something is habit doesn't mean it's good. You know that, right?"

Of course Yonghee knows. He knows that Jinyoung has been hurt before, and that his laserpoint focus was fashioned through years of strife and struggle. That old habits die hard, like a mottled bruise lingering on skin for weeks and weeks, a yellow thing so faded and settled you can't even remember how it found its way there in the first place. 

Yonghee has always known. Even when it was hard to see.

Jinyoung draws his legs together. "I used to be really weak. Not just… even when I had conviction, and I knew what was right and what I was supposed to do, I couldn't do it. I was weak mentally and physically, both because of myself and because of other people. Sometimes I let things happen to me. But, sometimes—no matter how hard you work or try or do your best, you can't force it to come together right away."

Yonghee is almost too afraid to hear the answer, but he has to ask anyway.

"When does it stop being like that?"

Jinyoung turns to face him, considering. Yonghee wonders if Jinyoung ever sees something meaningful when he looks at Yonghee like that, something that Yonghee is missing, something obvious. Or whether it's just looking for the sake of looking, telling Yonghee: _I understand. I'm here._

"I don't know," he admits. "Sometimes you just wake up and realize that nothing is so hard after all. But all that progress, and the improvement. It's still happening. I think it's just a matter of your perception catching up."

Yonghee can get behind that.

The thing is, he likes the idea of perfection. There's something reassuring about seeing the shades of it in Jinyoung's character, something easy on the eyes: like the line of his body when he dances, for one. The stretch of it lithe and flattering, his hips always snapping right to the beat.

What Yonghee doesn't know is if it's worth it. Forcing himself to emulate this performance the same way, making himself something he might never be. 

"I'm trying," he whispers.

Jinyoung nods, simple and direct. "I know you are."

Yonghee is sure he can be good enough. No one ever sat him down and asked him to be perfect. Maybe, for once, Jinyoung sees that. When he says, _I know you're trying,_ and _you did well today_ —maybe he understands how Yonghee can suffice as he is.

"Do you want to head back?" Yonghee asks him.

Jinyoung takes hold of the hand Yonghee proffers then, grasping tight as he hoists himself up. The simple touch burns along the surface of Yonghee's palm, something shuddering, gasping for oxygen.

Yonghee can only delude himself for so long.

Their debut showcase comes and goes, and that same night Yonghee goes and finds Byounggon tucked away into bed. They lie there hugging. Yonghee likes the mutual warmth, how they tether each other to the spot.

"We're _idols_ now," Byounggon is mumbling into his hair. His hand strokes the crown of Yonghee's head absentmindedly.

Yonghee closes his eyes. "Yeah," he says. And then, " _After all this time._ " Mostly for Byounggon's sake. He's sympathetic to the gentle disbelief that had colored Byounggon's voice, to the weight of Byounggon's sacrifices, even when they don't align with Yonghee's own.

Their first song— _Movie Star_ , already a declaration of performance in itself—is flashy and suave. It's nothing like Yonghee's bumbling sincerity, his loud _hehehe_ laugh and occasional clumsiness.

But it's still his. This song, his first album, the choreography he spent hours and hours slaving over. The tender thing he shares with Byounggon, a fluttering touch reserved to dimly lit bunk beds, his friendship with Hyunsuk and Seunghun—Hyunsuk who calls him cute without prompting, Seunghun who grumbles when Yonghee fixes his arms around him and squeezes tight, then threatens to kiss him a moment later. Whatever he and Jinyoung have, Jinyoung walking Yonghee through new steps in the practice room, Jinyoung pushing his fingers into Yonghee's hand, how the slide of it stays imprinted into the palm lines for hours.

All of it, every bit and piece.

Yonghee doesn't ever want to let go.

The thing is, Yonghee is meant to be the smart one now. It was a title formed mainly through his own interests, and then the members' perceptions of him, and finally the company's attempts at restructuring his presentability. He sets photos of math problems as his lockscreen; solves integrals as he slurps up his bedtime cereal; tutors the members in calculus problems they were never even forced to look at during the course of their high school truancy. 

Yonghee knows how to play a role. This one isn't even that. It's more like a glossy finish for all of his mundanities, proof that you can still repurpose, polish, an ordinary high school routine.

What lingers beneath is a different truth, though. One impossible to ignore: that Yonghee is only the smart one because anyone _actually_ good at academics, and in possession of something called common sense, would never throw it away to live like this, with four other men at a company lacking a track record for successful boy groups. Like, not a single group.

Yonghee can take a hard look at the data now. He knows his place, and he likes to think, at the end of the day, that he's self-aware—that he enjoys math and studies well, and that counts for enough, even though it hadn't been so simple growing up. He and his mom used to argue too much over his class ranking, over his cousins. She'd tell him he needed to set a good example for his brother.

Jinyoung and Hyunsuk and Byounggon—whose parents worried for them above all, who pampered them even in their absence—and Seunghun, who was nurtured into the industry from the fragile age of ten, who couldn't have made it out alive without his mom insisting he would be okay—none of them could quite understand these nuances.

"Your aunt called," his mom tells him over the phone, late into 2019, voice restrained. If Yonghee's life still hinged on having done well on the Suneung, it would have been with unabashed bitterness. "Hyomi got into Seouldae today."

Before, something like this would have definitely sent him spiraling. It would have had him worrying about how he compared, whether his own worth still held up.

But Yonghee's priorities aren't the same anymore. All he can say now is, _well, good for her._ Earlier that day, he cooked dinner with a metal spoon scraping at a nonstick pan because their apartment doesn't have any functioning kitchen utensils, and he thinks he might have feelings for his bandmate. Not just any bandmate, too—but the one who challenged him when he didn't know he needed it. The one who helped him even when Yonghee met his overtures with a cold shoulder, determined to make the two of them work.

Try and beat _that_ , he thinks.

July, August—the heat and swell of summer—eventually blend into fall, and their schedule picks up again from there. It isn't until early 2020, when Numb promotions have finished and they've done their round of award show performances, that they're finally allowed a weekend off. As celebration, the managers bring them back to the dorm and call for dinner and drinks. The seven of them sit cross-legged on the living room floor, Byounggon with his shoulder knocking into Yonghee's side, Jinyoung crosswise, all of them squeezed together and digging into boxes of chicken takeout spread onto the low table.

"Wow," Byounggon is saying, mouth agape, for what is probably the fifth time that night. He has _that_ look on his face. Like he's witnessing a veritable car crash, the disbelief perfectly stitched into every feature.

Yonghee blinks. "Well. He's… really going at it, huh."

Yonghee, for one, isn't drunk. He had the foresight to fish out a 1.5L bottle of coke from the fridge an hour ago, not wanting to deal with the unceremonious wakeup of a bad hangover. He's always hated the dullness that settles in the day after—when it's 3pm and you've only just managed to stumble out of bed, the afternoon sun spilling into every corner like a stark reminder of a day wasted, serving no purpose but to drive the point home.

That's why the image of Jinyoung across from him is particularly staggering. He and Byounggon sit and watch as Hyunsuk giggles through a meandering story he's been trying to share for the last twenty minutes. Seunghun, meanwhile, has an arm around Jinyoung: Jinyoung who hiccups slightly at the movement. Jinyoung whose hand is rubbing at one eye with syrupy coyness, Jinyoung whining lowly at something or another.

He's been nursing shot after shot of soju all night. Yonghee can't help but stare at the aftermath, how it comes into sharp focus from this distance: Jinyoung's face turned a glaring shade of pink, makeup still clinging on, his shirt sleeve just barely hanging off his shoulder. It makes Yonghee's brain run fuzzy.

"Yonghee-yah," Jinyoung says out of nowhere.

"Yeah?" Yonghee breathes, except they all know what comes next. He exchanges panicked eyes with Byounggon and steels himself.

Right on cue, Jinyoung kicks out a leg beneath the table and lets his foot nudge at Yonghee's. "Yongheeeee. Jinyoungie is _sleepy_ ," he whines, ending the spectacle with a picture-perfect _hmph!_

Beside him, Seunghun goes, " _Oh my god_ ," and snorts into his drink. Hyunsuk bursts into laughter, the cackle almost as bad as whatever Jinyoung just made them witness, mainly because he's drunk too and thinks Jinyoung is the funniest person alive whenever he gets like this. He would probably be filming if it weren't a liability. And if he actually had the coordination to handle his phone.

"What do you want me to do about it," Yonghee intones, but he's admittedly distracted by how Jinyoung's leg is still pressed up against his.

"I dunno," he slurs, one hand reaching out to prod dully at Yonghee's. Yonghee flushes, but he's spared from having to entertain him any longer when their manager notices the movement, slowly extricating Jinyoung's drink from his grasp and arranging him to lean against his own shoulder.

The rouge of Jinyoung's lipstick hasn't quite faded yet. It makes his whole mouth glisten with the imprint of spilled alcohol, a terrible combination when paired with his smokey eyes and flushed cheeks. Yonghee feels his throat working with a horrible insistence, like the world is mocking him. Whoever is up there knows exactly what this is doing to him.

He pops a piece of pickled radish into his mouth and squeezes his eyes. 

Yonghee can totally be normal about this.

Well, not really.

Realizing how it feels now, to _like_ a person like this—to be susceptible to even their absurdities—is pure torture. The months sitting with this knowledge haven't made it any easier, and Yonghee thinks he might be destined to die like this. He isn't immune to Jinyoung's sides; how they present themselves in full color, shift around like endless configurations of a Rubik's cube (not actually endless—somewhere in the quintillions), their faces vibrant and jumbled, lacking answer to the untrained eye. Yonghee wishes he knew how to rearrange those layers, how to make sense of them. Maybe then he could find a way to bridge past the uncertainty. 

There's no algorithm for understanding other people, though. Nothing for digging into the sticky shape of a coagulating friendship and pulling out the beating heart that binds it all together. Sometimes you have to let something sit and fester, watch it grow into a thing with self-sufficiency.

Yonghee isn't quite sure this is like that.

Jinyoung's foot shifts suddenly, and Yonghee can feel it slowly move along his thigh, the fabric thin enough for the heat to seep right through. He sits up with a jolt, flustered.

Yonghee honestly, truly, cannot take any more of this.

"I'm heading to bed," he announces. Byounggon looks at him questioningly, but the others heed him no mind, except for Jinyoung who takes his leg back with a put-upon look on his face. Yonghee refuses to find it cute. 

He gets up and starts collecting some of the trash littered across the tabletop, throwing one last pleading look to the managers. 

"Make sure Jinyoung gets to his room in one piece," he says. Then he's rushing off into the shadowed hallway, closing the door behind him so he can finally catch his breath.

Yonghee spends a total of ten minutes lying in bed and staring into absolute nothingness before he hears the door open again. He already knows who it'll be, so he makes no movement to acknowledge him.

Byounggon slides into bed next to him. Yonghee lets two arms snake around him like they always do, stuck deep in thought.

There are things he needs to understand for himself.

"Hyung," he mumbles into the crook of his elbow. "Have you ever kissed someone before?" 

Byounggon makes an aborted noise.

"What—what is this about?" he asks, tentative.

"I don't know. I keep thinking—well, I just. Jinyoung always says you have the most experience out of the five of us, and I was just wondering..." he trails off lamely. There's no way to end an admission like this gracefully.

Byounggon huffs out a laugh. "Why do you want to know? Have you never kissed anyone before?"

Yonghee blushes against his will. He raises his hands to shield his face and grumbles something into them that sounds vaguely like a denial. After all, he'd gone to an all-boys high school for nerds—with the kind of guys who barely even thought about _girls_ , let alone entertained the fantasy of fooling around with someone as unassuming as Yonghee.

"Hey, it's fine," Byounggon assures. He must hear something in Yonghee's pointed silence, a low whine that escapes outside his volition, because he laughs and goes, "No, really! Why do you look so freaked out? What... is there someone you _want_ to kiss?"

If Yonghee weren't so tired, so riled up from the harrowing experience he had just escaped, he thinks he would have found a way to extricate himself from this situation. He's never been particularly truthful by nature; Byounggon doesn't need to know everything that weighs heavy in his mind all day, all the treacherous feelings he experiences over the living contradiction that is Bae Jinyoung.

But he just escaped back-to-back footsie and weaponized aegyo from the biggest, most embarrassing crush he's ever had, which Yonghee has filed away as a top 5 unsettling experience in his deplorable twenty-one years of existence.

That's why he stews in his silence too long, and his reaction comes way off. The denial several beats too late.

Byounggon gasps.

"Oh my god. You do! You actually _do_. Kim Yonghee, do you like someone?"

Yonghee groans and turns around to face him head-on. The mood light Hyunsuk had gotten him for his birthday glows hazy and low beside them, the warmth of it fracturing along the weary skin of Byounggon's cheek.

"What are you so worried about?" Byounggon tries this time. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Yonghee shifts. "I don't know, hyung. You still haven't answered my question."

"Oh." Byounggon draws himself up and squints at Yonghee in the dark. "Well, yeah. Of course I have."

Yonghee bristles at the pointed _of course_ (of course? _of course?_ what does that make _him?_ ), but he holds back. "Who did you kiss?"

Byounggon shrugs. "Different people, in different places. Sometimes things just… happen. Especially at YG. I mean, you know. Most trainees there were already making bad decisions."

Yonghee's eyes widen. "Are you saying—you and Seunghun-hyung—did you two ever?"

Byounggon is terrible at subtlety. This means that instead of responding, he looks away and bites at his lip, the motion so overt it drags Yonghee's gaze with it. The accompanying silence, too, is answer enough.

"Hyung, what!?"

"It was just one time! We were like, completely wasted."

"Is that why you two are so awkward now?"

"We're not— _no_ , what? Who says we're awkward?"

Yonghee giggles at how flustered Byounggon looks. He likes seeing these traces of a boy unaccustomed to being the oldest in the room, always shying away whenever he gets teased. Then the moment passes and he remembers the crux of his issue, why he's tucked into Byounggon's side like this in the first place, and he sobers up again. Presses one palm against his forehead in despair.

"Do you ever get lonely like this, hyung?" he tries. He twists again and lies on his back, folds an arm across the span of his chest. "I've never kissed anyone before. I don't know—it doesn't even really matter who I like. But I feel like I'll never get that chance. Like I'll always be this way, wondering, not knowing what all the fuss is about."

Byounggon is quiet for a good fifteen seconds. Yonghee would think he'd fallen asleep if it weren't for the sound of his uneven breathing, the way his fingers keep tapping against Yonghee's shoulder.

"Sometimes," he says eventually. "Sometimes I get lonely. Are you thinking of telling them, though? The person you like."

"I don't know," Yonghee admits. "Probably not."

Byounggon hums. Then he says: 

"But do you still want to… well. Kissing isn't really anything special. But if it's something that matters to you, then—I could kiss you, you know."

Logically, it's not a bad idea. That's the first thing Yonghee thinks, anyway. The thought process in his head goes: if he had to choose anyone to kiss platonically for the first time, just to see what kissing is like, just to understand whether his feelings are a _Jinyoung_ thing or just a loneliness thing, then. Byounggon would definitely be one of his top choices. 

That's why the next thing he whispers, voice furtive, is:

"Are you drunk again?" 

_(Is this how it was with Seunghun?)_

"No," Byounggon whispers back. "I only drank a little. I'm barely tipsy."

Yonghee runs his bottom lip through his teeth and then exhales, wordless. It's as if Byounggon can sense his discomfort, because his arms suddenly tighten around him and push Yonghee deeper into his embrace. Yonghee turns the words over in his head.

"Okay," he finally concedes. 

It's anticlimactic. Yonghee's mouth muffles against Byounggon's shoulder as he says it, the syllables warbled through threadbare fabric.

"Okay?"

"Yeah, okay."

"Then…" Byounggon trails off. The, _should we?_ goes unspoken. 

Yonghee nods. Once. An unassuming motion spoken into the dead of night. 

A few heartbeats later, Byounggon is leaning in.

The first press of his lips is steady and warm, unhurried, the gossamer touch of security. Then Yonghee lets the movement deepen, trying to get used to the feeling of someone else's mouth hot against his. Byounggon was right: there's nothing really special about it. But it still feels nice, how Byounggon keeps kissing him like that. With all of his gentle insistence, without expectation. Yonghee's eyes flutter closed.

It would be easy to shut his brain off at this point. But the longer he waits for it to happen, the more he realizes what's really happening. Even now, he's still trying not to think about Jinyoung. 

The image of them in the living room rushes back unbidden. It's been tormenting him all along: Jinyoung's flushed face and loose arms, the way his foot had lingered by Yonghee's thigh, how he'd said _Jinyoungie_ through that demure pout of his, destructive to the core.

Yonghee draws back.

"Hyung," he says, brows furrowed tight. "I'm sorry. I don't think—" 

His breath quickens. He'd been so foolish for this, for trying to—

"Hey," Byounggon shushes him. "It's okay. I know. I know. Don't worry."

Both of them know, deep down, that they won't talk about this in the morning. 

What he and Byounggon have has always been easy. Not depthless, but like: being able to stand firmly at the bottom of the pool when you're six feet tall, the water swimming up past your shoulders without overwhelming. Ever since they met each other—when Byounggon wasted no time in telling him he was charming, let his palms rest on Yonghee's knees as if it would ground him—the strength of their friendship has been in their mutual understanding. In being able to stretch a hand out and feel five fingers caress back without it meaning anything more than the mere touch of it.

That touch, this mere act of connection. Byounggon doesn't need him to be anything more than who he is already, and Byounggon isn't Jinyoung, the person Yonghee has finally allowed to happen to him, and Yonghee is still trying to grapple with that.

"I love you, hyung," he says. 

Byounggon's palm strokes the outline of his sleeve. Then his fingers move across the span of his shoulder in a reassuring over-under motion, up and down, up and down, up-down.

"Me too," Byounggon tells him. And, "You're going to be okay."

Yonghee wakes up the next day to the glow of morning sunlight diffusing across his bed fame. Byounggon is already gone, and the spot next to him feels cold to the touch.

Yonghee is grateful that he's managed to avoid the throbbing aftermath of a bad hangover, but it also means something else. That the exhaustion tugging at his chest now, this affliction aching like a tender bruise, is entirely his.

It doesn't do to dwell on pessimisms like that, though. So Yonghee sits up with a groan and throws on clean clothes, scrubbing two hands over his face to shake himself to alertness. He trudges out to the living room and finds Byounggon already lazing around on the couch. 

He was right: they don't talk about it. But Byounggon lets him stretch out next to him, and he leans in just slightly when Yonghee rests his head on his shoulder, and Yonghee allows the feeling beating in his ribcage to settle.

"Want me to put something on?" Byounggon says, grabbing for the TV remote. Yonghee hums in consent.

When Jinyoung emerges from his room a few hours later, heavy-footed steps causing a ruckus the entire way down, he stops at the hallway's open mouth and eyes the two of them curiously.

Byounggon grins at him, cheeky. "Good morning," he says.

"Ugh, let it go." Jinyoung looks no more alert at 3pm. "What the fuck did I do last night?"

"Nothing," Byounggon assures him. "You were cute."

Jinyoung stares at him dubiously.

"If you say so…" he mumbles, before he walks over to their doorway and starts to toe his sneakers on.

Yonghee, who had stilled the moment Jinyoung walked in, frozen and fixed to the spot, suddenly animates again. "Where are you going?"

"Practice," he says. "I should go burn off the alcohol or something."

Of course—they didn't even have to ask.

Jinyoung yawns and waves a hand. "Well, I'm off," he calls out with a lilting tone, and then he's taking two strides through the doorway. Yonghee watches him turn the corner and disappear behind thick wall and concrete.

"Take it easy, at least!" Byounggon calls back a beat too late. Then he shrugs, like a, _well, that's Jinyoung. What can you do?_

Yonghee, for one, wishes he knew.

A month can feel like a long time, but in the end it's really just a day after a day after a day after another day. Routine kneaded and pulled and threaded, expanded. Yonghee goes to work, and he ignores the mess in his head, and time passes.

"Are you going to be okay?" Byounggon asks him one night. Yonghee isn't good at confronting people. They both know it, which is why Byounggon can't help but flutter around him with a gentle air of concern. "I wanted to give you time, but I feel like this is just going to keep bothering you."

"I can't do anything about it," Yonghee tells him with conviction. 

"Why are you so sure he wouldn't like you back?"

 _Isn't it obvious?_ Yonghee wants to say.

Yonghee never told Byounggon it was Jinyoung he liked, but the pieces must have been easy enough to put together. Now it sits between them like this, skirted around without explicit acknowledgement. 

_Because it's Jinyoung,_ he wants to say. _Because it's me._

Of course, Byounggon wouldn't get it. He's always been partial to Yonghee. Even now, the both of them are too soft in all the same places.

"It wouldn't be right. To force a thing like this onto him."

The look Byounggon gives him, right then, is purely considering.

Yonghee should have known better than to let Byounggon get involved.

"What's up?" 

Yonghee is lying in bed when he sees Jinyoung through the open doorway, hip tucked against its white frame. Jinyoung must have been standing there for a while, he thinks, because he heaves himself at the sound of Yonghee's voice and slowly makes his way in.

"We were playing Kartrider," Jinyoung explains, "but the kids wanted to watch a movie."

Yonghee looks at him curiously. "You aren't watching?"

"I don't like superhero movies," Jinyoung says matter-of-factly.

"Right, sorry. I forgot you hate fun."

Jinyoung snorts. They both remember how Seunghun had stood on the couch and declared Jinyoung hopeless after his third rant on why Doctor Strange's powers made no sense—when he'd gone, _what kind of name is Doctor Strange, anyway?_ —and told Jinyoung he could never watch a Marvel movie in their vicinity ever again.

Yonghee feels Jinyoung's fingers rustling at his duvet cover as he comes in, sliding in and settling down parallel to Yonghee's stretched-out legs. 

"What are you doing?" Jinyoung asks.

"Just going over my Japanese notes." His notebook is flipped open to a page of sprawling hiragana, phonetic hangul scritched above each character. He's never been particularly good at languages, but he still feels compelled to try.

Jinyoung hums and lets his arm press against Yonghee. To his side, Yonghee tries his best to affect nonchalance; he's pretty sure it isn't working.

Even when he doesn't say it, they all know it. How Jinyoung likes being alone. It's why it's a miracle that he and Hyunsuk and Seunghun, whose presences precipitate almost-constant tumult in an already high-tension dorm, get along as well as they do.

So Yonghee doesn't know what to make of Jinyoung's shoulder brushing against his, the weight of his body static and steady. Until he says:

"So, Byounggon-hyung told me you had something you wanted to discuss."

That _fucker._

"Oh my god," Yonghee gasps. "I'm going to kill him."

"Hey, don't talk about our leader like that," Jinyoung faux-scolds. "We're a Confucian group, remember?"

Yonghee rolls his eyes. Says, "It's nothing. Don't worry about it."

"From the way he sounded, it didn't really seem like nothing."

Fine, then, he thinks. Not nothing—but not something he can risk letting out of his grasp, either. Yonghee bites at the soft inside of his cheek and feels his stomach roil.

"I've been thinking about it, too," Jinyoung continues, when Yonghee says nothing. "I don't want to bother you for nothing. But—Yonghee-yah, I care about you. You know that, right?

Yonghee's head aches. Still thrown open on his lap is his notebook and the chicken scratch that ends in a lone ink tail, the result of his hand smudging haphazardly when Jinyoung had waltzed in. He closes it with a decisive clap and tosses it aside.

"I don't want to hurt you," Yonghee whispers.

Jinyoung gives him a rueful smile. 

"How would you do that?" he teases. "You can tell me, really. Haven't I always taken care of you?"

Of course he has. 

At the end of the day, isn't that the problem?

"You wouldn't—" Yonghee cuts himself off. What? _Wouldn't get it?_ Way to sound like a petulant teenager, he thinks to himself. "You wouldn't… it's just something I need to deal with."

"Does it involve me?"

"Maybe," Yonghee admits, closing his eyes.

Jinyoung shifts forward and lets his hand fall to Yonghee's. It's only then that Yonghee realizes he's been flexing it, in and out, forming an angry fist atop his sheets. Then Jinyoung says, "If it's about me, I want to hear it."

Even later, Yonghee won't know what it is about that moment that makes him say it. What it is about Jinyoung's steady gaze that has his heart jackhammering away in his chest, inviting Yonghee to throw anything at him.

Maybe, he thinks, it's because Jinyoung looks at him like he already knows.

"I like you," Yonghee says. "I've liked you since last year."

Yonghee had thought of a million ways a confession like this could have happened. Some scenarios are more generous than others, but it scares him to lean too much into the fantasy of it; for some reason, it's simpler to believe that Jinyoung would hate him before he'd offer Yonghee sweet nothings and easy romance.

This time, though. In this reality: Jinyoung just smiles at him. The tone of his voice is level when he says, "Why do you look so worried? If I said I liked you too, would it make you feel better?"

"Huh?"

"Yonghee, I spent so long trying to get close to you. Whenever I flirt with you, you just brush it off. Is that really it? Of course I like you."

"You like guys?" Yonghee asks, incredulous. Then his autopilot shuts off and the words finally start to sink in, his eyes widening.

Maybe they went about this the wrong way. Jinyoung, liking _him_? 

Something in his chest unfurls then. Like a flower blossoming, making way for new life and nurture. Yonghee couldn't help the way the corners of his mouth tug up if he tried.

"Yep," Jinyoung confirms, laughing. "I actually dated someone before. Another member. Before you guys."

Yonghee throws him a considering look. "Hmm. You don't have the best track record when it comes to getting involved with your bandmates, then." 

"I can't help being hot," Jinyoung protests, fluttering a few fingers below his face for good measure. Yonghee lifts an eyebrow at him, unimpressed.

"I don't know about that. You kind of looked like a dweeb back then."

"Huh—that's rich, coming from you!"

"What?" Yonghee pulls his arms back from where they rest around Jinyoung and leans across to rifle through his bedside drawer. His hand pulls back his reading glasses and places them on. They're absurdly thick; somehow the twin slabs of plastic make him even more doe-eyed than usual. "Are you trying to suggest these don't look good on me?"

Jinyoung laughs and pokes at the bridge of Yonghee's nose. "Hey, don't try to fish for compliments."

"Thanks. I'll just take that as a, _of course you look good, wow, Yonghee-yah, when did you get so hot?_ " 

"You're so weird," Jinyoung says, but his smile is big and warm and real.

The best people in Yonghee's life have all told him that. That he was weird but in a charming way. Always said with something of a helpless air, like, _oh, Yonghee, what are we going to do with you?_ No bite to it; just the simple marvel at the way he burns through life with all of his contradictions, his eccentricities.

Jinyoung has always had an awkward mouth. His lips can't help but purse without prompting, the reflective edge of a mirror divulging sentiments too untamed to hold back. It's why the soft shape of his smile now makes something tender in Yonghee's chest crackle—like the early flames of a campfire, a heat just nurtured and nonthreatening. A red that licks away at all the doubt, at the distance Yonghee had once forced between them, the warmth a tickling thing.

"So… what happened between the two of you? You and your ex?"

Jinyoung shrugs his shoulders up and stares a hole into the underside of the bunk bed above them. "People grow apart. Priorities change. When—when your group is a countdown to begin with, it's hard to see past the difficulties of a relationship. And I was only nineteen."

Nineteen. When Jinyoung was preparing to say goodbye to the very system that had catapulted him to fame, was breaking up with his boyfriend in the process, Yonghee had been scarfing down buchimgae at Namjji with a baby-faced Hyunsuk and Donghyun. Getting teased for being maladroit on the practice room floor while his friends studied until dawn, got into university, moved abroad and entered the military. That same period of transience, now in more ways than one.

"Isn't everything something of a countdown, though? At the end of the day." 

"Not like that," Jinyoung insists. He takes his hand and traces it along the edge of Yonghee's palm, finally lets their fingers slot together. "I don't want this—us—to go to waste."

Yonghee is sure that when he says _us,_ he means the group, too. But Jinyoung shifts closer, and closer, and closer, and Yonghee realizes that this—just the two of them, the personal _us_ —is actually happening. Both of them curled toward each other, their hands fisted together. It's an image he's only ever entertained in his most shameful reveries.

Yonghee's breath stutters.

"Wait," he says. "I have to tell you something."

"What?" Jinyoung asks. Their faces are so close together. Close enough for their nose, cheeks, lips, mouth to touch. Yonghee can feel the heat between them.

"The night we all drank in the dorm, and you got completely wasted…" 

"Yeah?"

"I, uh. I kissed Byounggon-hyung."

Jinyoung groans and lets his head hit his pillow. "Why would you tell me that _now?_ "

"When was I supposed to tell you?!" Yonghee protests. Jinyoung should be grateful that he's even divulging this at all. _Honestly._

"All right, all right," Jinyoung smooths over. "Well, I mean. You don't like Byounggon-hyung, right?"

"No. Of course not. It was just." Yonghee sighs, dreading the rest of his explanation. "I didn't know what to do, back then. I was ready to just let all of this dissolve on its own. I never thought you'd like me back, and I didn't know how to tell you. I wanted to know what it was like."

"You don't give yourself enough credit," Jinyoung replies after a long beat. "Or maybe you're just not very perceptive."

Yonghee drops his head onto Jinyoung's shoulder and snorts. 

"When we first met. I mean, again, at the company. I thought you didn't like me."

Jinyoung scoffs. "You thought I _hated_ you. Even though you were the one running away whenever I tried to get closer!"

There's nothing he can say to refute it, so Yonghee just hums noncommittally. "I guess I was wrong."

"We all make mistakes," Jinyoung says, amiable. 

This time, Yonghee is ready. He leans in and shuts him up with a kiss.

Navigating a relationship with your bandmate shouldn't make any sense, but somehow he and Jinyoung make it work. Spring crawls past, and soon they're in the thick of Jungle preparations, their second comeback looming faster than ever.

Then Jinyoung gets injured.

“Stop trying to walk around so much,” Yonghee scolds.

“It's fine if I don’t put too much weight on it,” Jinyoung insists. He hobbles toward Yonghee with an insistent look on his face, wincing just a little bit. “See?”

Yonghee sighs and grabs hold of his shoulders. "Sit down, idiot. You’re going to fuck up your knee like that."

"I hate feeling like this," Jinyoung tells him, later in bed, leg gingerly propped between them. _Useless,_ he doesn't say. But they both hear it.

"You're going to be fine," Yonghee mumbles into his cheek. He knows that everything passes eventually. Even this: even the grueling practices without Jinyoung, even Jinyoung's visits to the hospital, the treatments he complains about afterward. Yonghee has never been good with words, but he tangles his fingers into Jinyoung's, hoping that he can feel his sincerity through the touch.

Later that month, their Midnight in X radio segment drops. Jinyoung listens to it while the others are out for a schedule, and when Yonghee comes back Jinyoung is in bed and staring up at him with a shit-eating grin.

"Really? _Friend for life?_ " he teases.

Right: during the anonymous segment, Seunghun had read out Yonghee's feelings so plainly. How Yonghee said he was worried for his company friend, someone who gave his all only for things to not go his way. Yonghee, wishing he were better at the subtle art of comforting.

"What else am I supposed to call you," he protests. 

"It's cute. You're cute." 

Yonghee likes that, too: the times when Jinyoung calls him cute. Jinyoung doesn't do it often. Not even as much as the other members, who call Yonghee things like sweet and awkward, claim that he should be the maknae instead of Hyunsuk. Yonghee cherishes the way the word settles whenever Jinyoung mouths it, like he's only saying it because he can't help himself.

Yonghee knows that Jinyoung likes cute things—is cute himself. Jinyoung likes Hyunsuk, who despite his stature and air of responsibility can still act like the youngest, and he likes Hyunyul, who sometimes visits the dorm when Hyunsuk's mom comes bearing food. He likes to cuddle with Seunghun's plushies when he thinks no one is looking, and he takes selfies with his lips pouted and pursed, lets his hair cloud around him and soften the striking edge of his cheekbones. When Jinyoung gets embarrassed he squeezes his eyes and smiles a full 180 degrees away from the camera, the act blatant and concerted.

Jinyoung and his Rubik's cube sides, his endless faces—Yonghee likes them all.

"Be quiet and kiss me," he tells him, and he does, and he does, and they do. 

They do.

A month is just a day after another day after—you get the point. Everything heals with time, like a sprained ankle, an afflicted heart. Words spoken at midnight under the glare of studio lights, the disorientation at being forgotten. 

"The thing is," Yonghee is saying, conspiratorial. "Jinyoung doesn't remember _anything._ "

The three of them, he and Jinyoung and Byounggon, are sat together for an interview. Yonghee used to say the same thing to himself with something akin to disbelief, wondering if he was truly that unremarkable. But now—the both of them older, nothing like how they were in 2019—the words sound through his mic with a teasing edge. They all laugh together, and Jinyoung looks away with performed awkwardness, accepting that he'll never live this down.

"You have to give this up at _some_ point," Jinyoung tries to protest that same night.

Yonghee raises an eyebrow. "I'm supposed to just lie?"

"No, but. You don't have to sound so gleeful about it!" 

Yonghee giggles at him.

Before, Yonghee had been so determined to shield himself from Jinyoung's infuriating easiness. He hadn't learned yet that he gained nothing from lying to himself. That sometimes things are easier if you just let them be.

He sees it clearly now. Now, Yonghee can finally indulge his mundane fantasies. How he wants to run his fingers along the perfect dip of Jinyoung's collarbones, wants to press a featherlight kiss at the junction that meets his neck, trail his way up and capture Jinyoung's smiling pink mouth in his own. Yonghee imagines hands splayed against a supple waist, thighs tangled together, his touch burning at the back of Jinyoung's neck.

Whenever Yonghee says, _I'm going to kiss you,_ and Jinyoung blinks at him, his eyes are dark and big, a whole world to get lost in. 

It doesn't matter what came before them, or what has gone missing. Not now. Not when Jinyoung is steady beneath him, a conundrum of presentation, switching effortlessly between sensual and unassuming. His breath fans against Yonghee's ear, his mouth, hand reaching up to press against his stomach.

There will always be new memories.

**Author's Note:**

> tried so hard to get a cravity cameo in but couldn't figure it out... maybe next time ❤️
> 
> also, title taken from the [2021 soty](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzcjCrmKBqg)!! (or feel free to check out the [other 2021 soty](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qZJ9bXHpEU) i looped while writing this n__n)


End file.
